The tall and fair future Empress was neither pretty nor ugly, but pretty rather than ugly. Her piety was well advertised, but there are pieties which had better be dispensed with if they spring from a false foundation. This was the case as regards the religious zeal of Augusta of Holstein, who when she became Empress began to regard her husband as the Head of the Protestant Church—a man who, lacking eclecticism, talked nonsense about the Roman Church, the Christian religion and Latinity. But he should have been restrained and made to observe the outcome of his Lutheran ramblings, which were mixed with invocations to Wotan and the god Thor.
Another point no less grave was that the Holsteins, who were ruined or nearly so, were obliged to try and replenish their fortunes. Augusta was forced to think of this, and primarily to establish her brother Gunther, who led the life of a German officer of a noble family without having the means to do so. William II arranged matters from time to time, but he did not display much enthusiasm. In no case does money play a greater part than with people who are attached to a Court. Without money nothing is of value, because this class of people are only measured by the money which they spend.
This was not the case with Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein. He possessed intelligence and culture. It has also been said that he was well posted in business matters. He has taken the chair at congresses in the capacity of a man of knowledge, and if during the war he did not particularly distinguish himself as a soldier, he has nevertheless shone as a financier. As a young officer these practical qualities were not apparent. It was necessary for him to make a good marriage. He failed in many attempts at matrimony. Presentable enough as a young man, he did not improve with age. When I saw him at various shooting parties in Thuringia, at the beginning of his career at Court, he was not bad-looking. When Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein asked for my daughter Dora in marriage, and we had given our consent, he asked me to fix the date. I could not help saying:
"What!... Do you seriously contemplate leading my daughter to the altar without having that dreadful nose of yours attended to?"
As a matter of fact he had a red nose of a many-sided, uncertain shape. Everyone is not like the Prince of Condé or Cyrano. A misshapen nose is certainly inconvenient.
His sister pressed for his marriage with my daughter. The same idea had struck her at Berlin as that which twenty years earlier had brought the Prince of Coburg to Brussels. The immense fortune of the King of the Belgians was by now undisputed. Calculations were made as to his income, and people talked of a thousand million francs to be divided one day between three heiresses. This aroused ardent speculative ideas, because even in those days one thousand million francs counted as something.
The Duke of Holstein, having improved the appearance of his nose, again spoke of his marriage with my daughter.
Dora was still young. At this time my husband and I had reached the tragic point of an almost definite rupture. I hoped that it would take place quietly. It was not I who let loose all the scandals. It so happened that we had decided to stay away from Vienna for a year. We therefore left for the Riviera. Gunther of Holstein went with us. Thence we went to Paris, where I brought my household. This was looked upon as a crime. People seemed to forget that my husband formed part of my household.
His company, rare as it was, was only irksome to me, and doubtless mine was no more agreeable to him. When difficulties arose between us I found constant consolation in the society of my daughter. Her mother was everything to her; my child was everything to me. At least Dora was mine. Her brother had long left me, so I kept my hold on her. I protected her; I made as much of her as I could. But having now reached the point of the story of my daughter's marriage with a relation of the Hohenzollerns, and the influence which the Court of Berlin was destined to have on Dora's future and on my own, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of portraying in these pages the ideal man of my devotion, who, having secured my moral safety, also gave me a new lease of life.
I will not deny it. According to the ordinary laws of the world, his presence at that time on the Riviera and afterwards in Paris offended all the traditions of ordinary respectable conventions.